Mad Chatters Mornings: A Student Action Project
Jack and Seylah
Birmingham Primary School Global Citizenship Student Ambassador Program Reps
Contact: Sally Buckland (sally.buckland@education.vic.gov.au)
In 2023, Birmingham Primary School Grade 5 students Seylah, Jack, Scarlett, Amaia, Levi and Smith proudly took on the roles of the Global Citizenship Student Ambassadors. We were selected by the Global Ed coordinator at school and the Grade 5 teachers for our interest and engagement at school and our ability to use inquiry skills, which we quickly learnt were going to be important in being a Global Citizen and changemaker.
Mad Chatter Mornings Question Prompts
Birmingham Primary School is a Government primary school of almost 700 students. It is in a beautiful, treed environment in the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Some things that make our school unique are our Global Education specialist program and our involvement in the Council of International Schools program. During our involvement in the 2023 Meg Language’s Global Citizenship Ambassador Program (GCAP) we were supported by our Global Education teacher Sally Buckland.
The program asked us to identify an issue to take action on and we took our time to decide on the topic because we wanted to get it right. At the time we noticed that lots of our school friends were saying they wanted time with our school counselor, so we investigated why. After learning about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the program, we realised that a project around this issue would align most closely with SDG Goal 3: Health and Wellbeing. We chose our topic because we believed it would not only help our school but also encourage the communities and people around us to do the same. We already had some great environmental programs happening at school, and so we felt we didn’t have as much need to go in this direction.
Mad Chatter Morning Questions
To get started with our project, we created an online survey asking our peers questions about how they felt at school and what they did when they weren’t feeling good. We limited it to Grade 5s so that we could test it out before we went any wider, and it was an easy way to keep control of communication with the teachers. We asked our school counselor to review our questions before we sent the survey out. Once the survey was completed, we looked carefully at the responses and created a slideshow of the data, including infographics, to present to our peers. The data confirmed our concerns: that lots of our friends were wanting more time at school to talk about how they were feeling.
For a project involving mental wellbeing we knew it was really important to be linking with experts in the field of mental health. Our school counsellor Georgia and our teachers supported us when we addressed the Grade 5 students with the survey findings.
From our findings, we had a lot of discussions about ways to take action on this important issue, deciding to create a new program called ‘The Mad Chatters Mornings’.
Student produced infographic from survey
We invented the Mad Chatters Mornings because we wanted to create an open space for students to share thoughts and feelings. Once a week we co-authored a prompt question designed to help students reflect on their lives and mental health. We asked one of our former teachers Dave Round from ‘Round Table Connections’ for help to design our Mad Chatters discussion questions, because he had lots of experience leading groups with wellbeing programs. We asked questions like ‘Thinking back over the past week, which three colours best represent this week for you and why?’ We encouraged people to go as deep as they liked. The conversations took place in Grade 5 classes, during homeroom time, once a week. Some people talked in pairs and some wanted to share with the whole class, with our teachers helping us lead the sharing. Some people didn’t want to do either so they wrote their thoughts down in journals or books.
We got great feedback from the sessions from students and teachers and it helped to start the day off positively. We noticed that Mad Chatters Morning sessions got students talking to people they wouldn’t normally talk to and sharing thoughts that they had previously kept inside because there had been no time to let them out. It also got our teachers talking and being more aware of issues students hadn’t previously spoken about.
It felt like we used our leadership skills well when we all worked together as a team. Amongst the 6 of us, we had different areas of skills and interests that we used to support one another. We discussed ideas and thoughts together and used problem solving and communication. We had moments when we disagreed on the direction we wanted our project to take, but we solved problems by compromising and combining group member’s ideas so that everyone had a say.
As a result, our public speaking abilities grew and we now feel that we are more confident talking to others. Most of our Global Ambassador team went on to secure leadership positions in Grade 6 and we feel that our skills gained through the GCAP helped us so much with this.
Taking part in student led action meant that we were able to focus on something that was important to us. Sometimes adults in our lives don’t know what it is that we want to take action on, so being able to take control of the decision making was motivating for us. We did learn though that it is still important to have adults on our team to support us to make sure our projects are a success.
Overall it was really fun taking part in such a new experience and to have adults believe in us, especially to let us take on a program as serious as mental health.
We want to thank Lottie and MEG Languages for this opportunity and for teaching us all about being the best Global Citizens we can be! We learnt that being a Global Citizen, doesn’t just mean learning about the world or learning a language, but taking action, locally or globally to make the world a better place.
